Comment by ValentineC
16 hours ago
> their laptops have great internals but are terrible from a usage perspective — I like to imagine their system board in a Thinkpad X1 Carbon chassis with native Linux!
I don't know about Thinkpads, but the utterly pleasant glass trackpad is still one of the things I cannot find on most non-Mac laptops, despite every manufacturer being able to copy it for years.
The closest I've found are the Surface laptop/cover trackpads, but they have their own set of reliability and repairability issues.
As a MacBook user, I very rarely want to use a mouse except for gaming. THe trackpad is delightful enough for the bulk of my use cases.
You might be sleeping on trackpoint. I don't remember the last time I used a trackpad once I onboarded on trackpoint - all that hand waving is so tiring when you can achieve the same action even faster by just moving two fingers couple of milimeters. You just move your index from H to trackpoint and thumb from space to mouse buttons which is basically the smallest movement you can do on your keyboard.
> You just move your index from H to trackpoint and thumb from space to mouse buttons which is basically the smallest movement you can do on your keyboard.
What about gestures, like two-finger scroll, or two-finger hold+click right click?
Systems that have trackpoints have physical mouse buttons, so you can just do real right clicks. Scrolling typically has its own input combo: hold the middle mouse button plus push the trackpoint to scroll in whatever direction you're pushing.
If there's a trackpad as well (usually there is), you can still do all the multi-finger gestures on it unless you choose to disable the trackpad altogether.
Fwiw, I don't find the trackpoint faster or more precise than the giant MacBook trackpads. Its main advantages are being closer to your index fingers' likely resting position on the keyboard, physical mouse buttons, and requiring less vertical space than a giant trackpad.
I haven't used a touchpad in recent years that wasn't "good enough", I really don't obsess about those (but I acknowledge that many do here), but I profoundly dislike MacBooks' keyboards. Anyhow, let's not pretend that it matters as much as the broken mess of a desktop environment/windows manager that the OS sitting on top is.
> I don't know about Thinkpads, but the utterly pleasant glass trackpad is still one of the things I cannot find on most non-Mac laptops, despite every manufacturer being able to copy it for years.
I was never a trackpad person until I finally got a Mac at work maybe 10 years ago. But since the trackpads stopped really clicking in favor of haptics, they're a lot worse than they used to be. I get false/double clicks and inconsistent feedback.
ThinkPads have nicer keyboards, but they stopped doing the more traditional IBM layout several years ago, which is really unfortunate. I'd be willing to pay for a more traditional keyboard layout with a slightly smaller trackpad and/or a sizeable bottom bezel (which is actually preferable for me because of my posture when I use a laptop most of the time).
Interestingly enough the Neo went back to a clicking trackpad; you might want to try one and see how it feels for you.
Always makes me wonder how people use their machine when I read comments like this
I’ve worked in big tech and fast growing startups, side by side at one point or another next to hundreds of nerds that love talking about hardware and software
The touchpad is almost universally loved - I have never ever once her anyone complain about the click - most people didn’t even notice the switch
It has 3D Touch and all that and I’ve never gotten a false click - ever - not exaggerating, in however long they’ve been out
The only complaint I’ve ever heard more than once is that sometimes it takes a second to respond
So I ask you: how do you use your laptop? If no one else complains about this, it’s at least worth asking the question: what do you think you’re doing differently than everybody else?
Sure, I can tell you one thing that's different right now: I use third-party software to get a three-finger middle click. If Apple's operating system weren't missing basic features like the ability to middle click via the trackpad, I wouldn't have to do that and maybe wouldn't have this problem.